Hey friends, Alisa Childers here. We're going to be introducing a new series on the podcast today about reading the Bible, commonly misunderstood verses, and how to interpret the Bible with a return guest Clark Bates. Stay tuned.

Well, my guest today has been on the show before and we did an episode about misunderstood Bible verses and Clark, I don't know if you know this, but it was actually one of my most popular episodes ever.

So yeah, it's definitely in the top three or four. So let me just let the listeners know a little bit about you and we'll get right into our continuation of our discussion before. So Clark has a master's of divinity degree in pastoral studies from Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary.

And he's currently studying for a second master's degree in theology at Concordia Seminary and then intends on pursuing his PhD immediately after that. So he blogs at a website called xadjesus.com and that's exe jesus spelled like the lord jes.com. And he describes his website as a seminary for the saint and skeptic alike.

And so we recorded this past episode called five the five most misunderstood Bible verses. And like I said, a lot of listens and was really popular. I got a lot of good feedback on it, just with people messaging and texting and things. So Clark and I've been talking about doing just a series, even, making this kind of a regular thing from time to time, starting with depending on how much we get through today, making this a one, two or three part series.

And we continue talking about misunderstood Bible verses because there are a lot of them. So Clark, before we get into all of that, I want to ask you about something, an experience that you just had recently where you traveled to Spain and walked on a pilgrimage. So why don't you tell us what that was all about. And then you kind of came out with some really profound insights, even as they relate to apologetics, which I never would have thought of.

But you walking this pilgrimage, this some things were illuminated to you. So tell us about that.

Yeah. Well, yeah, for anybody listening that may not know what this is, I'll give just a quick review of what it is. So the pilgrimage I walked is called the Camino de Santiago.

Anybody that may have seen the Martin Sheen movie called the way has probably seen a little bit about that. It's said that in that movies about this pilgrimage. However, in that movie, they're taking a route from France across the northern part of Spain.

And in the pilgrims that I took began actually in the city of Porto and Portugal. So this is, there's many routes that are on this pilgrimage. And this is the one I took. And so I walked right about 150 miles from Porto all the way to the city of Santiago.

So the reason this is a pilgrimage, it's a Christian pilgrimage that goes back to the ninth century, right around 821 AD, I believe. And Santiago is named after St. James. That's what it means.

And so Santiago Spain is where the remains of the Apostle James, the brother of John, are supposed to be. There's a cathedral there, a huge cathedral.

And underneath where they perform the Mass is a sepulchre, which you can go down. And you can see the, the, aushuery, the box that they contain that are supposed to contain these bones.

So it became a Christian pilgrimage after this body was supposedly discovered. And for almost let's say about 1200 years, people have been walking this.

And it's been for many reasons. The reason that it exists is that church history in tradition teach that this Apostle that James went to Portugal in Spain, primarily Spain, landing in the city of Pedrón to preach the gospel. This was right after Jesus died, right about seven years after Jesus died.

And so he returned to Jerusalem as we read an ax right about 80, 44 or so, and was put to death. His disciples from Spain went with him and they brought his body back and the courted tradition buried him in Santiago, where a church was.

And so over the years it's been built up, but that's, that's why people come here. I felt like it would be a good time of reflection, especially since you walk everywhere.

And it's a, it's a challenge, but it's also a part of the region I've never visited. And it has a very, very rich history and a very rich Christian history.

How many miles is that again that you walked 150? Wow. So yeah, it took about 12 to 13, about 12 days. And so you know, in you, some, some pilgrimages, some routes are a lot longer than that.

But that was the amount of time that I had available was about two weeks. And so yeah, it was an amazing experience. It was something I met people from all over the world and not very many were the were believers actually.

So a lot of people do this just for exercise.

Really fun.

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